Democratic Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill turned on many in her own party during a town hall meeting Wednesday, claiming she believes a $17 trillion debt is “irresponsible” and that “we’re not a first-tier nation anymore if we get swallowed up by debt.”

The senator began by hitting the requisite Democratic talking points, noting that America didn’t suffer as badly as Europe during the recession because of the federal stimulus. “That’s why we’ve had job growth and they’ve had such stagnation,” she explained.

“But I do believe that a $17 trillion debt is irresponsible,” she continued. “I do believe that.”

“So some of the people who think, ‘Well, you know, deficits don’t matter, and debt doesn’t matter,’ — we have cut our deficit by a lot, and that’s great — but I don’t think it’s responsible to say, ‘Ok, let’s go back to the old way.’”

“Because you know what the old way was?” McCaskill asked. “We said yes to everybody. You know, we all want to be loved. That’s why we run for office.”

The Democratic senator also took aim at what she views as unconstitutional overreach by the federal government. “We have ourselves doing things the federal government was never intended to do,” she worried. “I mean, we weren’t supposed to be buying municipal fire trucks, the federal government. We’re doing that now.”

“That’s not the way the Constitution was designed,” she asserted. “We weren’t supposed to have the federal government paying for education. We are now doing a lot of that.”

Still a Democrat, McCaskill was careful to stress that she supported Pell grants, school nutrition and programs for disabled children. “That’s all good, and I’m for it,” she noted.

“But I do think we have to be careful about trying to make the federal government the answer to everything,” she argued, “because it’s gonna get us in the position that we’re not a first-tier nation anymore, if we get swallowed up by the debt.”

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